Fire Shuts GTA 6 Developer Rockstar North, Following Report of Explosion
38 points
4 hours ago
| 8 comments
| ign.com
| HN
esskay
2 hours ago
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What a ridiculously sensationalistic headline. It was a minor issue that occurred out of hours and was resolved less than 30 minutes into the working day. Nobody was in any way injured or affected, and it was business as usual.
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snowram
2 hours ago
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GTA6 is most likely the most anticipated cultural product of all times. Unfortunately, sensationalization makes perfect sense from news websites perspective.
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baalimago
3 hours ago
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Ah, the good old "explode the boiler to lower delivery expectations" trick. Befitting the studio of GTA!
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Stevvo
4 hours ago
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A delay would inconvenience the whole games industry, not just Rockstar; every other developer has to time their release and development around GTA 6.
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embedding-shape
3 hours ago
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I think most companies at this point learned that no launch date is set in stone. Sure, if you're doing AAA games, you might not want to launch right next to GTA, but for most others? Matters way less than people think.
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TheCraiggers
3 hours ago
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Tell that to the indie developers that launched games alongside the surprise release of Silksong.
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embedding-shape
3 hours ago
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> Tell that to the indie developers that launched games alongside the surprise release of Silksong.

Huh? Is your argument that it would be bad for Silksong to surprise release next to GTA? Or that indie developers should have planned around the surprise release of Silksong? I really don't understand what argument you're trying to make here.

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TheCraiggers
2 hours ago
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It sounded like you were saying other games launching at the same time yours does matters less than people think.

My argument was that other releases can and do impact sales.

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cdirkx
2 hours ago
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The argument is that Silksong will completely absorb any potential market for you new indie game had during that period. People will be too busy playing another game, leading to poor numbers during launch. It's hard to recover from that.
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embedding-shape
2 hours ago
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Right, but what does that have to do with "every other developer has to time their release and development around GTA 6", especially considering that Silksongs release was a surprise, so what exactly could you even plan for?

My original point that there is so many things at play, GTA 6 launch date, which may move, together with other things outside of your control, that "planning your release and development around GTA 6" doesn't make sense, unless you're a big company doing a AAA release.

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butlike
2 hours ago
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This implies Silksong was the stronger title, either in gameplay, marketing; or both. If the indie game was better, people would be playing that over Silksong. Isn't this just market forces applied to games?
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walletdrainer
2 hours ago
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That’s the point. If possible, you don’t want to release your game at the same time as a much stronger title.
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xmodem
2 hours ago
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The point is that no indie dev was able to plan around the surprise release of Silksong, precisely because it was a surprise.
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embedding-shape
2 hours ago
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Ah, so then just an agreement with "Matters way less than people think" in the end?
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xmodem
2 hours ago
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No.

A lot of devs delayed their launches:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/silksong-release-date-has-...

Those that didn't or couldn't think it hurt them pretty badly:

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/hell-is-us-boss-slams-silkson...

In general I think you are probably right. But there are definitely exceptions and this is one of them.

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delfinom
1 hour ago
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O wow, capitalism in action.
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keyle
4 hours ago
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This is not going to help the memes... Glad no one was injured!
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pogue
4 hours ago
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2027 I guess it is then :(
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NohatCoder
4 hours ago
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I don't think this is likely to impact development much, they can rent office space elsewhere if needed.
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embedding-shape
3 hours ago
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This is the same company that claims the exact hours of crunch is a "company secret" that would expose their development process and features of the game, so I don't think it's far off they'd use something like this to push another delay.
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embedding-shape
3 hours ago
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Slightly unrelated (maybe?), here is a moderately nuanced summary video of the latest happenings in the ongoing court cases in "Rockstar vs Union": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnuipPQDd_w

TLDR of the case: Rockstar fired some employees for a slew of different reasons (some leaked/confidential messages), (most) fired employees were members of the union and the court case is about if 1) they were fired for the right reasons and 2) they were fired in the correct way and right now 3) should they still get paid while the court case figures out the answers to #1 and #2

I'm saying "maybe?" unrelated as it does sound like something a disgruntled employee might do, but could also be something completely else. I feel like it might be related though, hence the linking.

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oniony
3 hours ago
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Could be a disgruntled employee; it could be Rockstar destroying their own records; it could be a leaky gas pipe.
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giancarlostoro
4 hours ago
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Did the game become real life? Wild.
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4gotunameagain
4 hours ago
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Someone got too tired of the pay to win nonsense and decided to play in real life ? xD
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nkrisc
4 hours ago
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The very first sentence of the article:

> Fire services attended the offices of Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar North this morning and secured "structural damage" following a reported boiler explosion.

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rationalist
3 hours ago
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It seems like it would be easier for some people to rig a boiler to explode than trying to get their hands on dynamite.

Why go through the hassle of trying to source a bomb when the victim provides you one on location already.

FYI, I'm not saying that's what happened, just that your dismissal shouldn't be immediate.

Also, the best way to sabotage something, is to make it look like an accident, that way they aren't looking for you.

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butlike
1 hour ago
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Hanlon's razor
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kotaKat
3 hours ago
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Well... then I guess the local boilermakers' union will have to come around with Scabby the Rat inflatables.
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4gotunameagain
4 hours ago
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Are you familiar with the concept of a joke ? I can send you some peer reviewed papers to read about humour if you'd like.
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nkrisc
3 hours ago
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Yes, I am familiar with jokes, but I don't see one here.
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Novosell
4 hours ago
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Jokes are not permitted on HN, please don't do it again.
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dessimus
3 hours ago
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HN is intented for mildly pleasant experiences only.
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akramachamarei
3 hours ago
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That's not actually true, though, is it? Or is there some other HN legal document besides https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ?
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testfrequency
3 hours ago
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Joking about an office building exploding is contextually not a funny joke
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pfdietz
3 hours ago
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Even worse, they didn't make a joke about the game "being on Steam".
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lanfeust6
3 hours ago
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It didn't land, but bad jokes aren't a crime
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lazide
1 hour ago
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Don’t tell TSA that.
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mschuster91
3 hours ago
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As long as no one died or got seriously injured, I see no problem in cracking jokes.
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